> Three months later, at the urging of his father-in-law, he married Yentl's sister Sara.
Can you do that?
The bit about the Rabbi telling him that studying Navi is useless and dangerous is very interesting. The idea that studying Gemara to the exclusion of everything else is still alive and well today. I wonder just how far back it goes.
>Can you do that?
Yes.
>The bit about the Rabbi telling him that studying Navi is useless and dangerous is very interesting. The idea that studying Gemara to the exclusion of everything else is still alive and well today. I wonder just how far back it goes.
It is, however bear in mind that while there is some truth to this, the assertion that Jews neglect Tanakh is a standard Christian trope. So while I doubt this incident was made up, the way it is presented may not fully reflect what actually happened, the same way some kind of story showing Christians in a poor light is often constructed in such a way as to give that impression. This is an account of a man with a point of view, not an impartial observer.
See this
http://onthemainline.blogspot.co...hebrew-
and.html
As for how far back it goes, the answer is that if we are talking about after the time of the Gemara, in every single era there are complaints and observations that Tanakh is being neglected.
>Can you do that?
>Yes.
I thought there was a problem with marrying sisters. I guess that's only marrying them at the same time? Something I probably should know.
> It is, however bear in mind that while there is some truth to this, the assertion that Jews neglect Tanakh is a standard Christian trope.
Is this in any way related to the medival Catholic ban on reading the bible? Could this have influences European Jews? Particularly as you point out in the other post that learning tanach was considered a waste of time by Ashkenazim.
Also, I remember reading that shortly after the Reformation the Jews in Europe were very influenced by the surrounding Chrisitans, to the point where there were Catholic Jews, and Calvanist Jews, and Anabaptist Jews...
You say you won't spoil the rest, but where is it?. He was exactly the right age to suffer the onset of paranoid schizophrenia, and I'd like to see more of this capital C craziness.
>You say you won't spoil the rest, but where is it?. He was exactly the right age to suffer the onset of paranoid schizophrenia, and I'd like to see more of this capital C craziness.
Email me, and I'll send you the text.
Make no mistake about it, it's not like he kills himself or anything (well, maybe he did. I have no idea what ended up happening to him). After all, this is something he himself wrote.
>I thought there was a problem with marrying sisters. I guess that's only marrying them at the same time? Something I probably should know.
Right, while they are alive. There are numerous cases of men marrying sisters in succession, a famous example being Ariel Sharon. Samuel David Luzzatto also married his deceased wife's sister.
>Is this in any way related to the medival Catholic ban on reading the bible? Could this have influences European Jews? Particularly as you point out in the other post that learning tanach was considered a waste of time by Ashkenazim.
I don't think so. First, I think it was always somewhat of an exaggerated claim. It may be that critics (then, as now) were never satisfied with how Jews were studying the Bible, but the fact is that rabbinic works were and are replete with quotations and commentaries on the Bible. I have yet to come across a solid rosh yeshiva who can't quote less famous pesukim from Mishle and the like.
That said, the way in which Jews studied Tanakh was deplored (by those who wanted them to learn it in a more rigorous way, or to spend more time on it).
I doubt that it was influenced by Catholic attitudes, because there is enough within rabbinic Jewish culture in itself to lead to neglect of Tanakh. Namely, we are rabbinic Jews, and therefore the Talmud and other rabbinic works are, in fact, of paramount importance. The reason why Jews focused primarily on Talmud is because, in fact, that is the primary focus of our religion. In addition, the kind of neglect of the Bible among Catholic laity (most of whom simply could not read, period, let alone understand Latin) was different. Jews were encouraged to know Hebrew and to learn, to do shenayim mikra, etc. It's just that Talmud and halakhah were viewed as ultimately the most important thing to spend one's time on. (cont.)
Even in Sepharad, and the lands under its influence, where Jews supposedly cultivated grammatical Hebrew and Tanakh to a greater extent, the Talmud was still the primary focus, with the exceptions (ie, the great grammarians) being that, exceptions. There were a great many of them, but it's not as if the entire culture was just sitting around all day probing Tanakh in all its majesty in a sophisticated linguistic way.
I am sure in some limited sense the existence of Karaites and Christians and Muslims played some kind of role in Jewish attitudes; after all, Jews lived in cultures and not in a vaccum--but I don't think the Catholic cultivated mystery about the Bible really had anything to do with it. If anything, the opposite was the case, and Christians influenced Jews to study Tanakh more and more, as they were constantly pressed to defend the Jewish reading of Tanakh. But there were also homegrown rabbinic Jewish reasons for these developments.
>Also, I remember reading that shortly after the Reformation the Jews in Europe were very influenced by the surrounding Chrisitans, to the point where there were Catholic Jews, and Calvanist Jews, and Anabaptist Jews...
I think that's overstating it. The Christians themselves made the analogy to Karaites and Rabbanites in the schism between Protestant and Catholic, and there were some Jews (generally descendents of Catholic Marranos) who were unable to adjust to rabbinic Judaism, and were sort of Karaitic Jews. In addition, Jews did become aware of developments in Christendom and certain mutual influences can be detected, but I think that kind of extreme characterization is a big overstatement.
In fact, one of the only complimentary things I have seen in all my reading of Christian missionary and other literature, about Judaism, is the whistful observation that the Jews basically somehow managed to avoid schism (the Karaite situation having occurred many, many centuries earlier and not really being relevant). Then, later, once there is Chassidus and Haskalah, and then Reform, you start finding the literature happily pointing out that there are different Jewish sects.
"a famous example being Ariel Sharon"
And Robert Aumann.
And Thomas Jefferson, sorta. :-)
These kind of people can only sustain a commitmment while they are rebelling against something. After spending some time in the Christian fold, was he expelled, dissappered or returned?
None of the above. He remained a Christian and served as a minister in Holland, where he died in 1795.
If you know Dutch, you can read some books he wrote http://books.google.com/books?um...uitsch&
as_brr=1
Hoewever, many Jewish apostates did revert to Judaism, most often in Holland, where it was legal. Elisheva Carlebach wrote an article about it called "Ich Will Dich Nach Holland Schicken...": Amsterdam and the Reversion to Judaism of German Jewish Converts" in a book called Secret Conversions to Judaism in Early Modern Europe. In fact, Duitsch talks a bit about this type of reversion in his book. A Christian mentioned to him a rabbi named Yechiel Hirschlein, who converted in Switzerland. Duitsch tells him that he himself saw Hirschlein in Amsterdam, living as a Jew, and a beggar.
Not only marrying the sister of one's late wife is not forbidden, but it is one of the few exceptions that permit an early remarriage (during aveilus), so that the children are not left unattended (cf. the beginning of Ketuvot).
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